Brokerage / Investment Sales - Analyst / Associate Salaries
Hey WSO, I was wondering what other brokerage / investment sales analyst were making salary wise? Do analysts / associates typically get year end bonuses and will you be getting any year end incentives or bonuses? Curious to hear how others in this industry are doing.
Bump
Depends on firm / team and their deal volume. I know analysts & associates in leasing, IS and Structured Finance who make anywhere from $50k to $100k base, with bonuses ranging from 5% of salary to 100% of salary. Generally, IS & Structured Finance are on the higher side when compared to leasing, but not always the case.
I'm at a HCOL, NY/LA and I'm making $60,000 base and no YE bonus. Is this fairly typical for large teams? I'm currently working for a top 3 team at C&W / Colliers. My brokers made around $10M+ last year and our staff runs very lean. We have around 4-5 total analysts/associates that work on all of the OMs, due diligence, and all other analysis/administrative work. I guess I'm feeling a bit underpaid due to the very high cost of living and working 60-70 hours. Am curious if others are in the same shoe.
You are severely underpaid. NYC analysts on institutional teams clear over 100k easily. That's with around 75k base. The fact that your brokers are taking in 10M plus a year and are unwilling to throw in a few points for an analyst/associate pool would drive me crazy. Is the no YE bonus bc of COVID or is this typical? I can't think of any firm on that caliber who would have this payout structure. The numbers I listed are for C&W,JLL,CBRE type firms
Do first of second year analysts really clear over or around 100k?! We work on a few institutional properties every couple months or so but also focus on $10-$30M buildings since those properties usually offer higher commissions on the deals.
The YE bonus is not because of COVID since I never received mine after my first year even after our team cleared $2B in volume and huge commissions for our bosses. I'm nearing the end of my second year and am feeling a bit underpaid even though they offered me a promotion to associate to $70k. Do you think it's because the team is a top 3 multifamily / industrial / office team that they are able to pay less? I'm just not sure how to bring bonuses up to our bosses or managers since this is my first job out of undergrad.
Yes this is insanely common for even first year analysts. Quite frankly, and I don't mean to boast I don't know a single person working in IS/DP in NYC that didn't get at least a 40-50% bonus on an average year. Obviously things are different this year. With that deal flow you should be getting at least some kick back from the brokers fees and even the houses fees. I'm not sure how to approach this situation with your bosses, since it seems like they've been doing this for a long time. They could easily replace you currently given the current market conditions, so I think your best bet may be to jump ship.
*edit- the fact that they are as you say top 3 in their asset class should mean they would be willing to pay more not less. More fees=more profit to go around
Just to put this into perspective JLL has adopted the HFF structure. So 4% of every fee goes into the analyst/associate pool (thats the bare minimum, I know most brokers consistently pay out more bps to certain analyst/associates depending on the deal). CBRE/C&W have similar structures where junior talent is kickbacked fee revenue.
You guys are doing 10M in commissions. That's $400,000 to split amongst 4-5 analysts/associates. 4% is a drop in the bucket for your brokers. That's just for bonuses, the house pays your salary
Know someone at JLL who made $65k base, and received a $50k bonus year 1 (2nd year analyst, though.
Know someone at CBRE who made $75k base and received between $60k - $75k bonus in Years 2 and 3, respectively.
Both lower cost of living cities than LA. Both on top producing teams.
Heavily, heavily underpaid. I'm under the impression you work at Colliers because CW institutional does not pay their analysts that low, especially if you are in NY or LA. Your lead brokers are fucking you and they know it.
I worked at a CBRE/JLL in Minneapolis as an analyst and my base was also $60k plus a meaningful bonus.
I suggest you talk to your bosses come year-end review time and see if you can negotiate comp structure. Within reason of course, given the current climate.
Jeez..... maybe I should have negotiated for a much higher salary before starting this job out of undergrad. I didn't know too many people going into RE, especially brokerage/IS after college and thought I might have a decent sized bonus considering the volume the team was pulling in and how lean the team is. I'm not complaining about working too much but are other IS analysts working just as much for ~100k? I usually get most weekends off and have had to work a few weekends when there were fire drills or deadlines we had to meet.
TBH, I'm not sure our bosses even have year-end reviews. I haven't seem them do it with anyone on our team that isn't a junior or senior agent. Do you think I should suggest a year end review?
Wow talk about greed by your brokers. You're getting screwed, I would shop around other institutional teams ASAP.
It's definitely been a bit tough the past 2 years working at this salary range. I've had to live around ~1 hour away from my office just to afford rent with 4-5 roommates. I've gotten used to the 2 hour daily commute but am starting to think I should look for a job on the buy side or find something different maybe at a development firm. I've barely been able to save any money due to rent, commute costs, insurance, food, and so much more. It's a bit disheartening seeing friends at tech companies make $150k out of undergrad in programming/engineering or friends that make $100k+ in software sales or tech sales.
This is definitely Colliers. I interviewed for a Senior Analyst role in their NYC office a couple years back and base was 85K so 65K for entry level doesn’t sound too off. Plus, no way Spies/Harmon or even the team below them are paying their Analysts that low at C&W.
85k at C&W?! I would have joined C&W if I knew they had a much larger base. I interviewed with a few teams back in college and joined my current team because they had the best track record. They're certainly no Spies/Harmon but they're slowly working their way to that level.
Can confirm spies/harmon take care of their juniors. Bonus is close to 100% in that group. Cushman has a weird structure tho where they "freelance" a lot of their work to their PREP program analysts, basically full time apprenticeships. Those guys can technically be working for a specific team, but not sure if they get bonuses of that nature.
Also getting relatively hosed. 40k base and 2.5% of gross team fees in major non NY/SF market. Team pays my salary, not the house. Say the senior brokers bill 1.5m-2.5m in fees annually collectively (two guys). Last two years I made 85-90k. This year of course being an anomaly (read: trainwreck), what do you guys think is a reasonable ask for when things get normal again? In my fifth year doing this.. also in a parallel process, looking around... was getting some good looks for buyside/competitors pre-COVID, quoting all-in around $120-$150k.
What the hell.... My senior brokers billed around ~$15m in fees collectively (3 guys) in the past few years and I've been paid $60k and $60k no bonus or incentives.
Are you a senior analyst or working towards becoming an associate? I'm thinking about jumping ship after seeing all these numbers on this post and other job boards..
I'm an associate. Though my group is very lean/not too much in the way of rigid titles. I don't oversee an analyst or anything, all "junior" work falls to me as the sole analyst/associate. I feel like I do a ton for my team, but not sure what a reasonable ask is, especially given gross production.
You're definitely getting screwed bud. When I was a first year analyst on the D/E brokerage side I was getting 75k base + bonus. Probably best to start making future plans because the people you work for have revealed how ungenerous they are with pay. Just take your time to find something good and don't rush the process especially in the current environment.
Damn.... I took this job because the team had incredible volume and they were growing at a huge pace. I didn't think everyone was outpacing and making a much larger salary than where I'm at now. I haven't been shopping around too much since the current environment seems tough for lateral moves. Thanks for the advice!
Or you could ask for a raise? You have a lot of hard evidence in just this thread alone as to why you deserve one.
Curious as to what others are getting as well. OP is unfortunately underpaid.
In 2019 I made 110k as a second year analyst and expect to surpass that in 2020 as a third year analyst. Ultimate goal is to end up in production and source own deals.
OP I was in a similar situation two years ago, although I was the only analyst for a top 5 producing brokerage team at my company. First year comp was my $65k base salary w/ no YE bonus. As others have mentioned, these guys are industry vets and know exactly what they are doing. I honestly wouldn't even bother trying to have a discussion about creating a bonus pool as they will just turn around and sell you on some shtick about how you need to bring in a deal first to participate in any upside. I understand being an analyst is damn near a commodity, but a good team should want to see their lower ranks do well make and make decent money alongside them.
I ended up jumping ship to mortgage banking after a year and made $72k base + $35K bonus my first year, and this year I'm expecting bonus to be closer to $60k-75k. The work itself on the lending side is also much more intellectually stimulating and enjoyable, which is an added perc. I think this kind of treatment is more prominent in investment sales because the producers tend to be independent contractors, and therefore any kind of bonus comp ends up being at their discretion. In mortgage banking, at least at my company (not JLL/HFF), it's company policy to have some sort of bonus pool for the analysts.
I don't think I've ever thought about the mortgage/loan/debt side of the business. I've always heard that salaries are much more stable in mortgage banking vs IS. I do get a small bonus around $500 maybe bi-annually but that is due to Christmas or Holiday "bonuses".
By mortgage banking do you mean at a Bank like JPMC/wells(on the relationship side not credit I'm assuming?) or do you mean debt brokerage?
Direct agency lending, so like CBRE/Berkadia/JLL/Walker & Dunlop. & yes, my position is client facing on the relationship/production side and not in underwriting.
If it makes you feel better OP, the analysts at the shop I'm an intern at make like 30k, total comp is like 50-60k.
Are they doing huge volume in a HCOL city? I understand making 50-60k if you're in a low to medium COL city or if the team is doing a few deals a year. The team I work for works on over 70-100 transactions a year so we are worked like crazy.
medium COL, new shop and volume wasn't anywhere near 2 billion, more like a few hundred million.
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